December 31, 2009

I can’t say I’m sad to see the back of 2009. Some great things have happened this year (including receiving a copy of Freia in the post this week – it’s a real book, weeeeeeeee!), but there has also been some not-so-great stuff, and some downright-shitty stuff that’s made appreciate the great stuff more but I’m also keen to move on from.

Inspired (as I so often am) by the fantabulous Crazy Aunt Purl, my resolutions for making 2010 a better year are:

Worry less – especially about things that a) I have no control over, or b) may never happen. In 2009 my anxiousness about things reached an anxiety-inducing peak. Hopefully what I learnt from crawling back down that mountain will make for a less stressful 2010.

Take (smart) chances – I’m a very cautious person by nature (largely related to my anxiety about making a wrong decision), which is all well and good if someone’s telling you to jump off a cliff, but can also stop you from doing the fun, what-have-I-got-to-lose stuff. The biggest chance I’m taking in 2010 is going back to full-time study and relying on freelance work to pay the bills for 18 months. It’s terrifying but I’m also excited and optimistic, and even though the list of cons (giving up a comfortable, well-paying job working with great people in an organisation whose goals I heartily believe in) is far longer than the list of pros, on balance the pros outweigh them. So I’m taking a chance.

Grow more – vegies, that is. Between Mr Fantapants’s new ‘grow your own food’ book and the Organic Gardener 2010 Annual, we’re revved up and ready to plant. If only I could get rid of my phobia about slugs and snails (actually, invertebrates in general).

Keep up my physio exercises – they take 45 minutes out of every day, but after two years in chiro and physio my back is finally painfree, for the main part, so it’s worth it.

Write more – including this here blog which hasn’t received the attention I’d have liked it to in 2009 because of all the aforementioned shitty stuff taking up way too much of my brain. Also, the manuscript for my second book is due in May, so, y’know, I really, really have to...

Here’s to a happier, easier, brighter 2010 for all of us.

(Yes, my eyes are closed in this photo. I like to think it's because I'm smiling so hard.)

December 14, 2009

On Saturday night Mr Fantapants and I did something we've never done before: we watched a movie on the laptop. In bed. Quite a novelty (and yes, this is a sign that we do need more novelty in our lives!).

The movie was Up, lent to us by one of Mr F's colleagues. I remembered hearing at the time it was showing in cinemas that it was a little sad in places, but I figured that was just in comparison to other animated movies, of the all-happy all-the-time mould.

Well, the reviews were right and I was wrong. Not that it wasn't a good movie (although it won't make my top 10 for the year), but there were so many sad elements to it:

the old man struggling with his loneliness after his wife's death

the fact that they couldn't ahve the children they dreamed of in the clouds

the little boy whose dad doesn't have time for him

the explorer driven mad because he's been accused of lying about his discovery

the dog bullied by his pack...

...I'm emotionally exhausted again just thinking about it. And even though there were some funny moments, and even though I loved Doug the dog and the little kid was cute and the old guy looked a bit like Mr F's dad, and even though the ending was nominally happy, on the whole it was a downer.

Luckily on Saturday I scored a bumper crop of books at the library, including the last in the Georgia Nicholson series, Are these my basoomas I see before me, which provided great antidote bedtime reading. Phew!

About me

I live with Mr Fantapants and Little Ms Marmalade. I have been known to consume an entire cheese platter by myself. I am an animal nerd - a trip to the zoo sends me into the animal lover's equivalent of a diabetic coma.
Email me: aimeeDOTsaidATgmailDOTcom